Keith Haring

Keith Haring was an American artist whose drawings, paintings and public works developed a widely recognisable vocabulary of outlined figures, movement and repeated signs. Born in Pennsylvania in 1958, he moved to New York in 1978 to study at the School of Visual Arts and became involved in the city's downtown art and club scenes.

From 1980 he drew in chalk on unused subway advertising panels. Murals and the Pop Shop extended his commitment to reaching audiences outside galleries. His public projects addressed subjects including drugs and AIDS. In 1989 he established the Keith Haring Foundation to support children and organisations responding to AIDS, before his death in 1990.